Photo by Rebecca Wilkowski

Photo by Rebecca Wilkowski

Local youth play basketball at the Potrero Hill Recreation Center.

November 2008

Potrero Hill Recreation Center a Big Draw for Locals

By Herman Wong

At first Carrie Buffington didn’t quite know what to make of the Potrero Hill Recreation Center.  Last summer the 30 year old moved from a Portland, Oregon suburb to a home across the street from the park.  Buffington was drawn to the location partly because her children and dog needed a playground and open space.  But her initial visit to the center left her unsure if she fit in there.  “At first I felt a little awkward.  Why are we the only Caucasians here?” she said.  

Buffington’s misgivings didn’t last long.  Her six-year-old daughter, Leah, and four-year-old son, Jonas, quickly made friends, and Buffington found the Center’s directors, who supervise the gym and run its programs, to be neighborly.  “The people were so friendly and inviting we just felt accepted,” she said.  

Built in the 1950’s, the Potrero Hill Recreation Center anchors the 11-acre Potrero Hill Park located at the top of Arkansas Street.  Ensconced in a sunny micro-climate, with expansive Bay Bridge views, the Center attracts a diverse crowd in a neighborhood that’s populated by public housing projects and multi-million dollar homes.  Basketball players, young mothers and their tykes, teenagers, and dog walkers are attracted to the tennis courts, softball fields, children’s playground and one of the City’s finest public in-door basketball courts.  

The public park has witnessed several changes in recent years.  Long-time director Jon Greenburg retired in August after 42 years of service, though he remains a part-time volunteer.  Greenburg’s retirement precipitated a personnel schedule shift that led to a temporary closure of the gym on Sundays, according to Steven Cismowski, San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s neighborhood area service manager.  Cismowski hopes that the center will reopen on Sundays at least part-time before the View’s November issue hits the streets.  

The Recreation and Park department recently approved $1.3 million for park improvements, which will be used to replace the sandlot playground directly behind the main building, repave the driveway for greater access for the disabled, and fix the North softball diamond by cleaning the undergrowth and installing a new backstop.  Improvement plans were put on hold after residents pushed to focus funds on refurbishing the South side softball field instead, and leave the other end open for dog walkers.

Among the changes is a constant:  Charles Bryant.  Friendly and jovial, Bryant, 49, who is known as Chuck or Charlie O., became one of the Center’s directors in 1980.  For more than two decades he’s visited the nearby Potrero  Terrace and Annex housing at 3 p.m. to ensure safe passage for the children to play flag football or take part in the Center’s other activities, which range from sports to a social group for young girls and homework help.  Housing complex residents will call out his name and wave as he goes by.  “I know everybody on this hill,” Bryant said.  “It’s my family.”

The Center, with its fading mural of alumni O.J. Simpson high above its entrance, is a basketball mecca.  The court – cathedral-like with a high and cavernous ceiling, the roof’s wood exo-skeleton exposed, light filtering in through partially opaque windows like stained glass windows – draws players from throughout San Francisco. Sega of America employees drop-in on Wednesdays at noon; Federal Express trucks line the nearby streets on Tuesdays and Thursdays early afternoons, when the delivery company’s workers run the courts.  During a lull between the year-round basketball leagues for teens and adults, Dennis Wu and his friends, who had played at the gym’s Sunday Asian basketball leagues, stop by on Thursday nights for pick-up games.

During the mid-day games, professional dog walkers talk among themselves on the softball field while a menagerie of dogs – bulldogs, Rottweilers, and boxers – roam unleashed on the grass or chase down balls.  The field is not officially a dog area, but in the mornings and afternoons the open space draws many dog owners, who move off to a side patch of green when the kids come out to play.  

Young parents and nannies come for the new playground, which was completed last year.  Picnic tables and barbeque pits attract families hosting birthday parties and preschooler play dates.  

The Center is not without its problems.  Some parents complain of teenagers playing in the toddler area, while others are concerned with recent crime.  The two most talked about incidents are a mugging at the bus stop in front of the Center, and a purse snatching at the playground.  Kate Nicholson, 37, who brings her 11-month-old daughter to the playground, said the latter has made her more cautious.  “If no one else is playing in the park I won’t come in,” Nicholson said.  

From July through September of this year 53 crimes have been reported within a 1,000 feet radius of the Center, according to Crime Maps, the City’s crime statistics tracker.  That number drops to seven within a 500 feet area, which covers the immediate few blocks in front of the center.  During the same period, Jackson Playground reported 23 incidents and McKinley Square had 33, within 1,000 feet.   

Buffington is undeterred.  She plays with her kids at the lower playground and takes them up the hill to run around the softball field with the dog walkers and other children.  She and her son recently joined 60 other parents and children for a music class for preschoolers at the Center.   Next year Buffington intends to sign her kids up for T-ball.  Bryant, who coaches the team, hopes other parents will join them.  “It’s a beautiful place to come, to bring your kids,” Bryant said.  “It’s just a positive place.  Don’t just peek-in and assume things.  Just come in.  It’s good for everybody.”

Subscribe to The Potrero View

All rights reserved. Copyright © 2006 The Potrero View.

Content on this site may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of The Potrero View or its Publishers.